Generon Filter Supplement

I recently had a tremendous opportunity to test out some cool technology on my channel: a nitrogen membrane filter by Generon. You can see that video here: Testing the Generon Nitrogen Membrane Filter. You might want to watch the video first, to give context to the discussion below.

I got a lot of great comments on that video, and one in particular brought up some really great points that I wanted to take the time to address. Here's the full comment by piranha031091:

Let's address both of those points with some exciting... math!

Boron Research

As mentioned in my new video, Elemental Extractions 5: Boron, I've been doing a lot of research on the element and how to isolate it. My chosen reaction for that video (and my old one on boron) was the magnesiothermic reduction of boric oxide:
B₂O₃ + 3Mg == 2B + 3MgO
But it turns out that this pathway only produces very impure boron, for several reasons. Read on for some of the results of my research, with links to the papers I mention. You can also see my thread on ScienceMadness for some extra discussion.

Major Lab Renovation Part 3: Furniture!

The renovation progresses! I received my official lab furniture and am in the process of installing it in the room. There are a few minor/major problems to resolve before I'm finished, though.

Major Lab Renovation Part 2: Safety!

The first pieces of my new lab have arrived: real, heavy-duty lab safety cabinets for flammables and corrosives!

Also, I'll be sealing the grout lines in the lab with this suggestively-named product:

This will help keep spills from staining (or possibly dissolving!) the grout. The tile is ceramic so it should be reasonably resistant to most things on its own.

Now to await the furniture!

Major Lab Renovation Part 1: First Steps!

My home lab has served me well for the past seven years on YouTube (can't believe it's been that long!), but now it's time for a major overhaul and renovation of the space. You may have already seen the announcement video on my YouTube channel. Rather than post several small videos, I thought I'd document my progress here as things happen. I'll make a video to showcase the new setup once it's all in place, but that could take several months. So first, let's start with a tour of the lab space I've been using so far.

Golden Rain

This post is the video companion to this video.

This experiment is hands-down the most beautiful chemistry demonstration I've ever seen. I'll be synthesizing lead(II) iodide, which has a beautiful golden yellow color. This experiment is especially striking because this bright yellow solid is produced from two water-clear solutions.

Materials

• 1.0 g Potassium Iodide, KI
• 0.8 g Lead Nitrate, Pb(NO₃)₂
• 500 mL Distilled Water

Reaction

Pb(NO₃)₂ (aq) + 2KI (aq) --> 2KNO₃ (aq) + PbI₂ (s)

Getting Started With Home Chemistry

As a part of my participation in the Gulf Coast MakerCon, I wanted to write a short article to cover the basics of home chemistry, for those that want to know more. We'll go over where to start, how to find supplies, and a few excellent resources I use in my own experimental pursuits.

Gulf Coast Makercon 2014

I'm very excited to announce that I will be participating in the Gulf Coast MakerCon on April 5-6, in Tampa FL! This event is similar (but not affilliated with) the Maker Faire in California, and is made up of people that make or do interesting things. There's a huge variety of participants - 3D printing, robotics, custom jewelry, cosplay, tabletop gaming, and much more - so you're bound to find something that interests you! The MakerCon folks featured me in one of their Meet the Maker segments as well.

I will be hosting a booth featuring my Element Display, which is now nearly fully stocked with samples! I only have about 13 left to collect. I will also have an outdoor area where I will be performing live chemistry demonstrations every few hours, including exciting experiments like thermite reactions. I haven't finalized my list of demos, but I'm leaning towards 3 per show, with the theme of wresting elements from their compounds.

If you are in the area, I definitely recommend you try coming to this event. It promises to be very educational, exciting, and lots of fun! Come visit my booth and say hi!

Oil of Wintergreen

This post is the video companion to this video.

Today's experiment will be making a minty-scented oil for the winter time: methyl salicylate, or oil of wintergreen. This can be made simply from two very common and easy to obtain chemicals, and with a very simple procedure. This is also one of my first forays into organic chemistry!

Materials

• 13.0 g aspirin, C9H8O4 (the actual tablets will weigh more!)
• 60 mL methanol, CH3OH
• 8 mL concentrated sulfuric acid, H2SO4
• Distilled water 

Reaction

1 mol aspirin + 2 mol methanol --> 1 mol methyl acetate + 1 mol methyl salicylate

Chevreul's Salt

This post is the Video Companion to this video.

Chevreul's Salt is a little-known copper compound that is quite easy to prepare, and has a few very interesting properties. In this post, I'll go over in detail what I did.

This experiment only requires two materials: copper sulfate and sodium metabisulfite. The former is sold at hardware stores as root killer for plumbing, and the latter is commonly found on eBay (since it is used by gold recovery people).

Potassium Chlorate from Bleach

This post serves as the Video Companion to this video.

This experiment was also featured on Hack a Day!

In this simple experiment you can create potassium chlorate, a powerful oxidizer that finds use in amateur rocketry, a convenient source of oxygen, and the famous "screaming gummy bear" demo (among other things), from common household items with a minimum of effort. The tradeoff is that it's a very inefficient process and yields tend to be very low. Electrolysis is a far superior method, and is something I plan on trying out in the future.

'Video Companion' Posts

Recently I read a comment thread elsewhere on the 'net where people were arguing the pros and cons of conveying information by video vs. by text. Some prefer video because you actually get to see what's going on, and some prefer text because they can peruse it at their own pace and it is in an easily searchable format. I think it's at least partially a case of visual learners vs. reading-writing preference learners, but I digress.

While I presonally prefer video format (as you may have guessed from there being much more content on my YouTube page) I can understand the points of both sides, and have decided to write blog posts here that I will call "Video Companions". These posts will include a basic write up of the experiment shown in one of my videos, to include things like procedures, formulas, necessary calculations, and any other observations I didn't point out in the video. I think these posts will help to reach a wider audience, enable people to explore the science more, and hopefully take away more from my experiments. I'll try to do this for all my new videos from here on out, and also add posts for older videos (probably progressing in order of their popularity). You can easily search for these types of posts by clicking the tag in the Categories side bar to the right.

So if you prefer text, rejoice and stay tuned for more! If you prefer video, feel free to stick to YouTube, but I encouorage you to visit here occasionally if you have any questions.

The Element Display: LED Control Circuitry

This post will describe the electronics I used to drive and control the LEDs for my element display. These were designed by my good friend and very skilled electrical engineer Bill Porter (www.billporter.info) and built by him and myself. To read about the project as a whole, see the introductory post.

I’m not an electrical engineer, but I will try to describe what I can here. Bill has a much deeper knowledge of this sort of thing, and has posted a much more in-depth article about how all this works on his website, which he has dubbed the Elemental Illuminator.

The Element Display: LED Lighting

This post will describe the LED lighting scheme I used to illuminate my element display, including where I sourced the LEDs, how they are attached to the backboard, and the table’s overall color scheme. To read about the project as a whole, see the introductory post.

The Element Display: Acrylic Shelves

This post will go into detail on how I assembled the individual acrylic shelves for my element display, including where I ordered the plastic and the process of attaching 240 shelf pins to the 120 shelves. To read about the project as a whole, see the introductory post.

The Element Display: Backboard Construction

This post will go into detail on how I constructed the backboard for my element display, including cutting it into sections to make it transportable, drilling the required 360 holes, and attaching the sections together in the final configuration. To read about the project as a whole, see the introduction post.

The Element Display: Introduction

For a very long time I have been interested in the hobby of element collecting. That is, collecting actual samples of elements from the Periodic Table. It's amazing to me that it is possible to possess all the building blocks for every piece of matter in the universe! This desire to start an element collection was actually what got me started as a home chemistry hobbyist in the first place. In fact, many of my experiments have the ultimate goal of isolating a pure element to add to my collection. While there are currently 118 elements discovered, it’s generally agreed that only the ones up to Uranium (92) are collectable (but it’s actually possible to get a few more than that, thanks to smoke detectors!). All elements heavier than Uranium, and a few lighter ones too, have no stable isotopes – they are radioactive and will eventually decay into lighter elements. That leaves a total of 95 samples to collect (including Am).

I've steadily grown my collection over the years, and now it's become large enough where I wanted to build a nice display case for it. This project has taken me many months to design and construct, and has evolved through a lot of different concepts and iterations. The idea quickly grew from a simple shelving unit to one that included programmable LED lighting, shelves arranged in the shape of the Periodic Table, and the ability to be broken down easily for transport. This was a massive undertaking, and even the simplest alteration required tons of work to propagate through the entire display. It has been an incredibly rewarding and very fun experience, and has taught me a lot of handy skills like painting, soldering, and carpentry in the process. I spent three months designing it, built three prototype small-scale versions, and spent another 13 or 14 months constructing it off and on during my free time. Below is a video of the finished product and a summary of how I put it all together. Much more detail can be found in the following posts here on my blog.

Titanium Thermite & Calcium Sulfate

Titanium metal from a thermite reaction has been one of my goals for a long time. I needed it for my element collection, and this thermite is particularly interesting because of the surprising chemicals it uses. The formulation I am using was developed by a fellow blogger and colleague on the Science Madness forum, Gert Meyers. His blog post on the subject can be found here. The following will talk about my efforts to obtain good quality titanium metal from the thermite reaction he lays out. This is a re-post of the info I shared on Science Madness, including many pictures and 3 unlisted Youtube videos never before seen by the general public!

Chemophobia: An Era of Discouraging Scientific Curiosity

In doing research for my experiments, I often run across articles in the news about police raiding suspected "home meth labs" or "amateur bomb making facilities." These are very often people's homes, which the authorities, for one reason or another, suspect are conducting illicit activity. Now I'm not against the police taking down such operations, on the contrary it's a good thing that these people get taken off the streets. However, in many cases they go overboard and barge in on amateur scientists like myself, who have no intention or capability of producing drugs or explosives at all, let alone in any sizable or dangerous quantity. If such search and seizures are to be conducted, those responsible need to have a damn good reason for doing so! It's quite clear if someone is engaging in drug production or explosives manufacturing vs someone who simply has an interest in science.

Neodymium Metal from Hard Drive Magnets, Part I

Note: There's been a lot of work done on this subject on Science Madness, and the actual procedure I used is a bit different (specifically Step 4 & 6). Once I actually complete this experiment, I will update or replace this thread with the final method.

This is the first in a many-part series of posts detailing my efforts to isolate pure neodymium metal from hard drive magnets. This has been an extremely exciting project that I've really enjoyed undertaking, and the journey is just as fun as the final result. I'll be making a video on this eventually, but it's been such a long process that I thought people might be interested in reading some occasional updates on it in the meantime.

This first post will be about the theory, and will detail my reaction scheme.